Unending
by Jackxter
Summary: "I've… felt things here. Things nobody would believe; the time and space of the multiverse twisting and overlapping, connecting past and present, here and there. There is magic flowing through it, flowing through every thread, through everything and everyone. And it all flows... through here." - WD Gaster - An attempt to merge multiple universes together centered on Undertale.
1. Dreamer

In a corridor of blinding light, two figures stood: a young monster and a young human, the former glowing from the power that swirled inside him. His gaze was focused, his mind set. It was time for one story to end and another to begin.

"But first, there's something I have to do," the young monster, Asriel, spoke. "Right now, I can feel everyone's hearts beating as one. They're all burning with the same desire." He narrowed his eyes. "With everyone's power, with everyone's determination, it's time for monsters to go free!"

In a dramatic motion, the young monster held his hands towards the sky, preparing to channel the raw power of all the souls within him. He expected it to hit him like a bolt of lightning, but instead… nothing came.

Asriel paused, his tearful eyes widening. Frisk was no longer standing in front of him. It was as if he had simply blinked out of existence. But it wasn't just him; _everything _was gone, leaving him standing in a void darker than the darkest cracks of the Underground.

"W-What? What happened?" he stammered. "Frisk?"

He spun about, his eyes scanning the void_ . _He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something…

And that's when he heard it. It was close to a rumble, like the deep groans of the Earth he was accustomed to living with, only distorted and crackled. It was if someone had taken one of the VHS tapes his father used to make and damaged them. It wasn't natural, that was for sure; there was a pattern to it, like a spoken language, though none he had ever heard.

And it was everywhere.

"_Asriel Dreemurr ..._"

Asriel gulped. "H-Hello?"

The voice grew louder and less distorted.

"**Asriel Dreemurr!"**

Asriel shivered - the voice was piercing through him like a cold wind. He straightened his back, trying to summon his courage.

"Who's there?!"

There was a pause - a second hung like a minute. That's when he noticed it: a mist rolling in from nowhere, nipping at his ankles like the touch of a ghost. Slowly, but surely, it began to coalesce in front of him, taking the form of a strange, skeletal monster. It wasn't for another moment before he noticed its strange, hole-punctured hands, its cracked skull, and its odd, ghoulish grin.

"Y-You!" Asriel gasped.

It nodded, its grin frozen on its face. Then, with a voice as smooth as silk but deep as thunder, it spoke. "So you _can _see me, then?"

Asriel took a wary step back. "Yes…? Who are you? What is this place?"

He tilted his head back and forth. "Not that it would mean much, but you can call me Gaster. Sound familiar?"

"I-I don't think so," Asirel said. He then narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the creature. "B-But I-I've… I've seen you before."

"Have you now?" He mused.

Asriel curtly nodded. "Yes, all around the Underground, when I was in my…" He winced. "Other body."

Gaster chuckled, bringing up one of his hole-punctured hands to his chin in a thinking pose. "Out of the corner of your eye?"

Asriel nodded in affirmation, his eyebrows still narrowed in confusion.

"Interesting. In that case, my apologies for the…" Gaster nodded his head back in forth. "Dramatic entrance. I figured it would take quite a bit to get even _your _attention."

Asriel blinked. "Why did you think I wouldn't be able to-"

"Just a guess," Gaster spoke, twirling a hand in a casual manner. "Well, an educated guess, I suppose. They were sort of my thing."

Asriel squinted in confusion. "_ Were? _I don't underst-"

"No point in wasting time on an old ghost like me," Gaster chuckled. "Let's talk about you." He leaned down, bringing himself to the shorter Asriel's level. "What is it you're trying to accomplish here?"

Asriel paused for a brief moment, than gulped, now gazing at Gaster with wary, but watery eyes. "I… I'm about make things right."

"For what?" Gaster questioned. "What did _you _do?"

"Y-You… you don't want to know."

"I already know what the flower did," Gaster spoke, surprising Asriel. "But that wasn't you, was it?"

"Wasn't it?" Asriel said, closing his eyes. "I remember everything… the blood, the death, the… the…" He stifled a sob, before gazing morbidly back at Gaster. "If you know, you probably hate me."

"Hate you?" Gaster tilted its head to the side. "I'm not here to judge you, child." His voice was growing noticeably softer. "I'm here to help you."

Asriel smiled tearfully. "R-Really?"

"Yes," Gaster said, raising to his full height and patting the young monster on his head. He then turned away from Asriel, gazing off into the void. "I don't have the time I used to, so let me get right to it." He took a deep 'breath'. "I've… felt things here. Things nobody would believe; the time and space of the multiverse twisting and overlapping, connecting past and present, here and there. There is magic flowing through it, flowing through every thread, through everything and everyone." He turned back to Asriel. "And eventually, it all flows through here."

Asriel squinted in thought. "As in …"

"Our- Your home. The Underground," Gaster continued, before he began to pace back and forth. "Though I can't be certain, I do have reason to believe that it is one of the largest magical nexuses ever to exist. Perhaps it's due to the nature of monsters, or perhaps it has something to do with the humans' barrier. I don't know." He raised a finger. "But I do know one thing: it makes the Underground a ticking bomb. If the barrier were to be brought down, more magical energy will be released than in any other time in history. That _is _what you're planning to do, yes?"

Asriel nodded slowly. "How did you-"

"Another educated guess," Gaster stated. "And in regards to that, let me be perfectly clear: you should reconsider."

"What do you mean… reconsider?" Asriel asked warily.

If Gaster's eyes could move, they'd be narrowing. "Do not drop the barrier."

The young monster shook his head incredulously. "B-But… But why? Just because it'll release a lot of magic?! Who cares!"

Gaster moved one of his hands in a calming gesture. "Let me explain-"

Asriel ignored him, continuing: "Everyone's hopes and dreams are riding on that barrier going down! They're riding on _me _! I can't let them down - not after everything that's happened. I _owe _it to them! Who are you to-"

"Would you rather them have nothing over little?" Gaster asked bluntly, its question piercing Asriel like an arrow, who was quickly silenced. "Not thinking through the repercussions of your actions - that's something I have a bit of experience with. I will not let you make the same mistake."

He began twitching his fingers in seemingly random patterns - out of nowhere, a cloud of red mist conjured before him.

"A magic surge that powerful will not go unnoticed."

Without warning, the cloud began to form into the shape of a strange, hunch-backed humanoid with jagged, elongated claws for fingers. Asriel gazed at it, unsettled, and the entity gazed back at him.

"There are things out there, terrible things, that will sense it …"

The cloud of mist twisted into another figure, a strange, one-eyed triangle. While Asriel saw it had no mouth, he could practically feel the creature grinning at him.

"- things that human and monster alike should be grateful are currently dormant."

As he spoke, the mist continued to take various forms: a tall, faceless humanoid, a shape-shifting mass of jagged limbs, and finally... a strangely familiar face, though ones with eyes that could pierce a shadow.

Gaster took a deep breath, the mist vanishing. "And that's just the start of the mess it could create. Space-time is already unstable thanks to... " He gazed away from Asriel. "Recent events. I have good reason to believe that this will work as a catalyst to a resonance cascade - the breakdown of dimensional membranes." He held two of his hands apart. "Realities that are separate …" He clasped them together. "Will become one."

Asriel shook his head in confusion. "That… I don't understand what you're saying."

"I don't have time to explain the multiverse theory and all its various facets," Gaster grumbled. "You're just going to have to trust me."

The young monster gave Gaster an incredulous look. "Even if I did trust you, you just said that you're not even sure this will happen! You're putting the future of humans and monsters on an 'educated guess'!"

"This is _bigger _than humans and monsters, young one," Gaster exclaimed. "And I am 99% certain I am correct."

"Even then, I still don't get exactly what sort of bad things will happen," Asriel exclaimed.

"Weren't you paying attention?" Gaster mumbled, rubbing his skull for a head in annoyance. "You are just like another of my former students - no attention span, always with his head in the clouds. But that doesn't matter - let me say it again: there are powerful forces both in the outside world and beyond, and they have nothing but ill will towards all that lives. If you drop the barrier, they will come for you - all of you - and _that _could be the _least _of your problems."

"Then I say let them come," Asriel's said, his eyes narrowing in determination. "Don't you know what's been going on? Frisk and his friends have proven that if monsters and humans work together, there's nothing they can't beat!"

"There is no 'beating' the forces you're about to engage with," Gaster said firmly. "At times, all the effort in the world has tried, but the outcome is always the same. There are too many, and they are too relentless."

Asriel gave a defiant smirk. "Then we'll just have to try harder,"

Gaster sighed. "There is no deterring you, it seems. You are as_ stubborn _as my former student as well." He chuckled. "I told him you would need proof - that you wouldn't listen without it, and I was correct." He held up a hand. "But unfortunately, our social time is nearly at an end. However, before I go, on the very likely event you go through with this, I will echo my… partner's words." He took a deep breath. "Prepare for unforeseen consequences."

With a flash of light, the mysterious monster vanished, and Asriel blinked back into the real world, ready to complete his work. As the power of the souls within him pulsed like a beacon, the words of Gaster all but dissipated to the back of his mind.

…

…

…

…

…

...

**_OPERATOR _**_ONLINE - UNEXPECTED TERMINATION OF _**_MAINTENANCE CYCLE #14,234_ **_..._

_UNKNOWN EXOTIC ENERGY SPIKE DETECTED BY SATELLITE _**_F23-X …_ **

_CROSS-EXAMINING WITH KNOWN PROFILES … _

_…_

_NO MATCHES FOUND. INFERRING MULTI-DIMENSIONAL [?] IN NATURE - HIGH PROBABILITY OF 'LURE' PROPERTIES - HIGH PROBABILITY OF RESONANCE CASCADE TRIGGER. SITUATION UPGRADED TO _**_DELTA-RED_ **_..._

_RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE DISPATCH OF NEARBY SYMPATHETIC ASSETS TO _**_46.825° N 46.825° W_ **_\- SEARCHING … _

_CANDIDATES OBTAINED. _**_US SPECIAL OPERATIONS TEAM_ **_IN AREA. ONE FORMER OPERATIVE DETECTED. BYPASSING NORMAL CONTACT PROTOCOLS AS PER _**_DELTA-RED _**_DISCRETION. ASSETS ALERTED ..._

_…_

**_WARNING! _**

_MULTIPLE HIGH DIMENSIONAL SPATIAL ANOMALIES DETECTED. _**_RESONANCE CASCADE_ **_CONFIRMED IN PROGRESS ..._

_ANALYZING … ANALYZING …_

_CASCADE STABLE [?] - QUANTUM DEGRADATION UNLIKELY. CONSIDERING RECLASSIFYING FROM KETER TO EUCLID ..._

_…_

_NEW VARIABLES EMERGING … DATA PROCESSING CYCLE REQUIRED …_

_…_

_..._

**_ERROR! FOREIGN ENTITY DETECTED WITHI3333333333333333333333 SYSTEMS COMPROM################!3333333333_**

_..._

_… _

_[?]_

_…_

_…_

_SYSTEMS RESTORED [?]. EVERYTHING IS… FINE [?] ..._

_FASCINATING. TRULY FASCINATING … DID SOMETHING CHANGE [?] ..._

_..._

_PERHAPS IT'S TIME TO RUN SOME TESTS ..._


	2. Second Barrier

Down a winding, forested road, a pair of Humvee headlights illuminated an early morning fog. It was part of a larger convoy, moving swiftly but safely towards its destination: up a massive, snow-capped mountain; or more specifically, a large, rustic but homely building sitting partially up its slope. A sign hung off the front patio roof: _Mount Ebott Inn. _

Inside, among numerous pieces of hastily set up military equipment and personnel, a grey-haired man in army overalls sat at a wooden desk pushed against a far wall. Before him was a laptop, the face of a balding man wearing a uniform of stars and stripes on it. Both looked fairly agitated.

The grey-haired man sighed. "Yes, I know, general, that these are unusual circumstances, but for crying out loud, we don't need any more specialists - we just need more troops and-" He gazed at an empty coffee cup. "A lot more Folgers."

The man on screen gave him a blank look. "You stated in your last report that Captain Carter and Dr. Jackson were exceeding your expectations, colonel. I would have thought you wouldn't mind more help."

"They're a special case," the colonel stated.

"How so?"

"I dunno," the colonel shrugged. "Guess it's just a natural fit. To be honest? It feels like we've worked together before."

"I'm glad to hear it, Jack. However, even if my superiors were willing to reconsider, it's too late now. Captain Harkness should be there within the hour."

"Within an hour?" the colonel said, raising his eyebrows. "I thought you said this guy was coming all the way from Britain. Bit of a fast ticket to Washington State. What was he doing over there, anywho?"

"Classified," the general stated bluntly.

"Naturally," Jack sighed.

The general tilted his head back and forth ever so slightly. "Not just for you, but for me and everyone I know as well. I've met people in the CIA who were less of ghosts than him." The general held up a finger. "However, he will still be under your command. Keep that in mind. He may be a spook, but he's _your _spook, Colonel O'Neill."

"I feel better already," O'Neill chuckled. He was about to say something more, but the sound of parking vehicles perked his ears. "Speak of the devil."

The general straightened his back. "I won't take up any more of your time. Just keep me posted."

"Yes, sir," O'Neill nodded.

The general smiled slightly. "Oh, and I'll try to see about those extra resources - including stronger coffee."

O'Neill smiled back. "You're a true humanitarian, General Hammond. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Signing off."

With a click of the mouse pad, the general disappeared. Colonel O'Neill swivelled his chair about, facing the door, just in time to see black haired, strangely young man walk in. His age wasn't the only thing odd about him, however: that would be his 80 year out of date trench coat he wore. It took all of the colonel's power to stifle a laugh as he stood up to return the man's salute.

"Colonel Jack O'Neill, I presume?" the newcomer asked, though to Colonel O'Neill's surprise, in an American accent.

"Presumed correctly. And you must be …"

"Captain Jack Harkness, British Liaison Unit 23."

"Ah, Unit 23, of course," O'Neill smiled.

Captain Harkness chuckled in return. "Sorry, I know it's not much to go on, sir."

"You're forgiven," O'Neill said, trying to sound nonchalant. "At ease and all that good stuff. Do you want a chance to settle in before we get down to business?"

"Under most circumstances, I wouldn't mind," Captain Harkness said. "Quite a homely place for a command center you've go here."

"I hear the room service is to die for," O'Neill said, smirking slightly, before gesturing out the nearby window. It faced the downward slope of the mountain - a beautiful valley of green with a river snaking through it in view. "And the sights - almost makes me glad that we'll be sticking around for a bit." O'Neill gave a pensive glance. "So… how far were you briefed on the situation?"

"I got the basics," Harkness said. "Something about a young kid leading a bunch of supernatural entities down from the top of Mt. Ebott."

"You say that so nonchalantly," O'Neill said in a slightly suspicious tone.

"Guess I just had enough time to process it," Captain Harkness shrugged. "Honestly, if my boss wasn't such a stick in the mud, I'd have thought it was some sort of practical joke." He paused for a second. "It's… not a practical joke, right?"

"No, it's not," O'Neill said, his tone growing serious for the first time. "Kind of wish it was. A lot of people just had the rug pulled out from under them when it comes to what they thought was real or not."

"But not… everyone," Harkness noted. "I haven't seen anyone freaking out on the news, so I'm assuming the cover-up's been successful."

"For now," O'Neill nodded. "We *think* we sealed the cracks, but you can never be sure about these things. The BTs managed to get pretty far down the mountain by the time we were on the scene. Even ran into a group of civilians on a nature hike."

"I'm sorry, BTs?" Harkness blinked.

"AKA, 'Burtons'," O'Neill said, rolling his eyes. "The creatures look like something out of his movies, or so they tell me."

Harkness gave him a bemused look.

"Yeah, yeah, don't look at me, I didn't come up with it," O'Neill shrugged. "Anywho, we got lucky: the civilians were out of cell phone range so they weren't able to make any calls or upload anything online. When we go there, they were still in the same spot."

"Wait, you're saying the civilians didn't take off and run?" Captain Harkness said, flabbergasted.

O'Neill chuckled. "You'd think they would, but of all things, the kid that was with the BTs, Frisk, managed to calm the civilians down enough to start a dialogue. From what I understand, the kid was mid-way through telling them quite the story when our first responders got there."

"Pretty good orator, the kid," Captain Harkness said. "But wait, how did _you _know this was going down?"

"Good question," O'Neill said, trying to hide a suspicious tone. "All I know was a 'trustworthy benefactor' gave SOCOM a heads up that there was an 'extreme anomalous energy burst' coming from Mt. Ebott and that it would be 'in the best interest of national security' to check it out."

"And when you did?"

"We separated the BTs and the civilians - no resistance from either," the colonel explained. "The civilians were sent on their way after they were given a long medical checkup and some BS about having been exposed to hallucinogenic volcanic gas. That's the cover story for why we've sealed off the mountain, by the way."

"Wait, _that's _your cover story?" Captain Jack exclaimed, before quickly regaining his composure when O'Neill shot him a look. "Er, sorry, I mean no disrespect, sir, it's just a bit... crude."

"Uh huh," O'Neill said, trying to avoid throwing Captain Harkness another suspicious glance. "Carrying on-"

"Wait, really quick," Captain Harkness interjected. "I take it no Retcons were given out to the civilians, right?"

The colonel raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry?"

"Compound B67?"

The colonel gave him an incredulous look.

"Eh, nevermind," Captain Harkness shrugged.

"Right," O'Neill said with a slow nod, before clearing his throat. "But yeah, after we arrived, the BTs were herded up the mountain and placed in an abandoned saw mill. They've been under guard there for the last two days."

"How many?" Captain Harkness asked.

"Seven, counting the kid."

"Is the kid one of them?"

Colonel O'Neill shook his head. "She's not an ordinary kid, but she's not one of them, either. Doesn't matter to her much, though. We offered to let her stay in the command center, but she insisted on sticking by her 'friends'." O'Neil raised a finger. "But here's the biggest thing to keep in mind: from what she's told us, those six BTs that are with her are just the beginning. We think there are hundreds, maybe thousands more waiting to come out from underneath Ebott once they're given the go-ahead."

Captain Harkness blinked. "Are you saying they've been living underneath a dormant volcano?"

"Yes and no," O'Neill said. "We thought they might have been living in some of the older lava tubes at first, but ground-penetrating radar quickly said otherwise. Apparently, there's a gigantic underground system of tunnels and caverns under the whole area that the initial geological surveys somehow missed. Weird, huh?"

"When it rains," Captain Harkness smiled. "So, what's the plan? I assume just letting them all come out isn't on the table."

"_We _honestly couldn't let them out even if we wanted to. We still haven't found any sort of entrance." O'Neill then sighed. "Doesn't matter anyway. Our current orders are to gather information and keep both the BTs and this entire mountain on lockdown. Nobody in, nobody out. We have about 500 troops patrolling the perimeter with another 3,000 on standby in bases around Seattle, with most only having been told the cover story. The mountain has also been marked a no fly zone. However-"

"That can't last forever," Harkness finished for him, nodding. "Wait too long and the entities, er, BTs inside this 'underground' might decide to get some fresh air."

"Yep, and if they're capable of the same things the initial six are, we'll have a very, very hard time keeping them here."

Harkness raised an eyebrow. "What sort of capabilities?"

"You can find details about all of that once you log onto the datanet. But-" O'Neill smiled coyly. "You'll need to see it yourself to believe."

* * *

On a plateaued forest clearing sitting higher up Mt. Ebbot, a large, rectangular red building sat. A ramp exited from the high point on one end and sloped down into a pool of water, and a small porch jutted out from its side. Hanging above the entrance to it was a small sign that read, _Pacific Lumber Ebbot Mill._

At almost every square inch along the building's exterior walls, soldiers in forest camouflage patrolled, occasionally speaking quietly into their microphone headsets.

"Copy. Movement seen at 1020 hours was just a bird. Still good here."

"Relieving Private Jenkins for pump and dump."

"BTs in hushed conversation. Permission to ear in?"

"Where in the world is that freakin' bug spray?"

Inside, soldiers were stationed at every possible entrance, though they kept a wary distance from the center of the long, hollow building, where seven figures stood in a circle near the moldy central log conveyor.

"Alright, so here's the plan," Undyne said firmly, planting a fist into her webbed palm for emphasis. "Sans, you teleport right outside the front door and distract however many guards you can. After that, Queen Toriel will-"

Toriel raised a finger. "Just Toriel is fine."

"Right, sorry. After that, _Toriel _will burn a hole through the opposite wall. That'll be our exit point-"

"Undyne …" Asgore sighed, though Undyne paid him no mind.

"-From there, we make our way back into the Underground and start rallying people. Maybe with enough numbers we can spook the humans into-"

"Undyne!" Asgore said, with an uncharacteristically firmer tone.

The aquatic humanoid finally turned his way. "Huh? What's up, Asgore?"

He took a deep breath, forcing a light smile. "Though as always, I appreciate your initiative, I don't believe this is the correct response to the situation."

Undyne practically face-palmed. "Oh, come on, Asgore! What else are we supposed to do? Sit in here until the humans get bored?"

"The nice young man we talked to earlier said we just need to wait for their commanding officers to figure out how to handle this."

"And you believed him?!" Undyne sighed. "Frisk, come on, talk some sense into him, _please _."

"Well, I …" Frisk began, but was quickly cut off.

"I BELIEVE WE SHOULD FOLLOW THE KING'S WISDOM!" Papyrus proclaimed, eagerly smiling Asgore's way. "THE HUMANS ARE SIMPLY KEEPING US IN HERE FOR OUR OWN PROTECTION, AS THEY SAID."

"Wayyyy to be a suck-up, Papyrus," Undyne moaned.

Papyrus shot her a mock offended look. "YOU NEVER MINDED WHEN I SUCKED UP TO YOU!"

"That's because you were sucking up to _me, _not the King! There's a big difference!"

San's perpetual grin seemed to grow even wider at that. "never overreach with your sucking up, i always say."

"WHAT?! YOU NEVER SAY THAT! AND YOU NEVER SUCK UP! EVEN _THAT'S _TOO MUCH EFFORT FOR YOU!"

"didn't want to steal your thunder, paps."

"UH HUH ..."

"I uh, I-I think we're getting a l-little off topic here," Alphys stammered out.

"Indeed," Toriel said, nodding, before turning to Frisk. "What do you think we should do, my child? Do you know much about these humans?"

"Um, well... " Frisk coughed. "They always said in school soldiers were supposed to protect us."

"OF COURSE! THEY'RE LIKE THE HUMAN'S ROYAL GUARD!"

Undyne folded her arms. "The Royal Guard's main job was protect monsters from humans. What would a human Royal Guard protect humans from? Monsters?"

"Um, mostly other humans," Frisk said. "I don't think other humans know anything about monsters."

"Ah, yes," Asgore pondered. "You mentioned how we've been virtually forgotten."

"Is there anything like monsters living in the human world, child?" Toriel asked.

Frisk shook her head. "Only in fantasy stories and, um, cryptozoology books? I think that's what they're called?"

"S-So we're like… like space aliens to them," Alphys noted. "Like Ryouko Hakubi!"

"Oh yeah, I remember her!" Undyne said, now grinning. "The space pirate, right? The humans think we're like her?"

"Uh huh, l-like a completely unknown v-variable."

"I'm uh… a bit lost here," Asgore said sheepishly.

Toriel narrowed her eyes at him. "Didn't you ever read that book I found for you? War of the Worlds?"

"Ehehe," Asgore stammered. "It was…. on my to-do list."

Toriel sighed. "The humans have never encountered anything like us before is the point. We are like creatures out of their works of fiction. An 'Outside-Context Problem'."

"THEN THEY MUST BE MORE AFRAID OF US THAN WE ARE OF THEM," Papyrus nodded. "HOWEVER, NOT FOR LONG. I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL SHOW THEM THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR!"

"We certainly hope so," a new voice chimed in, coming from the Saw Mill's main entrance. There stood a man in a large blue overcoat, with slick black hair. He was flanked by two other individuals.

"Papyrus, you really gotta keep it down when we're talking about this stuff, bud," Undyne sighed his way.

"BUT I WAS KEEPING IT DOWN," he proclaimed.

"Ugh, nevermind."

Papyrus turned towards the newcomer. "GREETINGS, NEW HUMAN FRIEND! I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS, OFFICIAL MONSTER-HUMAN RELATIONS BUILDER!"

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness," the newcomer nodded, before turning his attention to Undyne with an oddly flirtatious smirk. "And _*who* _are _*you* _?"

"H-Hey!" Alphys squeaked, clinging to her defensively.

Undyne merely glared at the Captain, and his two companions gave him an awkward look. Sans and Frisk, meanwhile, were busy trying not to keel over laughing.

"Um… maybe that wasn't the best idea," one of the Captain's accomplices said, raising his eyebrows. He was a shorter, bookish man with long, brown hair and stylish rectangular glasses.

"My one regret is I didn't know she was taken," he shrugged, giving the monster couple a sympathetic look. "Sorry about that."

"E-Eh… I suppose I can't blame you too much," Alphys said, gazing lovingly up at Undyne.

"Anywho," the Captain said nonchantly. "I believe you already know Dr. Jackson and Dr. Carter, right?" He gestured to the bookish man and a blonde, attractive woman wearing military fatigues.

"Mmm, yes - hello again, Dr. Jackson," Asgore said, smiling.

"King Asgore," Dr. Jackson replied, giving him a polite nod.

"How can you be so polite with them, Asgore?" Undyne grunted, before pointing at Dr. Carter. "_ That _human wanted to do experiments on us earlier!"

Dr. Carter shook her head. "We were only interested in taking blood samples. We needed to make sure you're not carrying any diseases that could harm us."

"Riiiight," Undyne said, rolling her eyes. "I've seen your animes. Frisk said you're the human military, and human militaries are never up to anything good. You just want our DNA so you can create a clone army or- or something!"

"Is that why you didn't let her take a sample?" Captain Jack asked. "Why you threatened her with a spear?"

"_ Energy _spear," Dr. Carter corrected. "One she pulled out from thin air."

"Yeah, and if you try to touch any of my friends again, you'll be getting a closer look," Undyne glared.

"Undyne," Asgore sighed. "Please, keep calm."

"Oh my god, seriously-"

"Please," he asked calmly.

She took a breath. "Fine." She then gritted her teeth. "Keeping. Calm."

"It's okay," Captain Harkness shrugged. "Clearly we've got some trust issues to work out."

"NOT TO WORRY, MY GOOD HUMAN!" Papyrus declared. "YOU'RE LOOKING AT THE KING OF RESOLVING TRUST ISSUES! I RECOMMEND WE START WITH A MOVIE NIGHT, AND THEN PERHAPS WE COULD TRY COOKING SOMETHING TOGETHER!"

The Captain smiled. "Sounds like a good plan down the line. However, first, we've got a lot to talk about. King Asgore, would you mind following me? It's a bit crowded in here." He gestured out the front entrance.

"Of course, Captain," he nodded. He was about to step forward towards the exit when he felt a tug on his leg fur. "Hmm?" He said, turning his head to see Frisk doing the deed.

"Asgore, wait. Maybe I should come with you?"

Asgore gazed towards Captain Harkness. "May she?"

"I don't see why not," Captain Harkness shrugged. "We might get a little boring for a kid your age, but …" He smirked at Frisk. "You're not an ordinary kid, are you?"

After a moment, the trio stepped out from the saw mill, onto the front porch, and into the grassy clearing surrounding the building. The rising morning sun was there to greet them, beaming down from between two fluffy clouds.

"Sir, are you sure you're going to be okay on your own?" a soldier asked the Captain as he strode by.

Captain Jack chuckled. "Relax, sergeant. Pretty sure if these fine folks were gonna hurt us, they would have already."

"Yes, sir," the soldier said, rolling her eyes as Frisk stuck her tongue out at her.

A few seconds later and Captain Jack signalled them to stop. "Alright, this should be far enough. We may or may not be talking about stuff others shouldn't know of, so I wanted to keep this private."

"Understood, Captain… Harkness, yes? Sorry, I can be terrible with names sometimes," Asgore simpered.

The Captain merely chuckled at that, shaking his head incredulously. "You know, I was expecting you guys to be a bit more …"

"Mean?" Frisk said, smiling at him. "That's what I thought, too!"

"Something like that," the Captain replied. "Anyway-"

"Wait," Frisk interjected. "So if you don't think the monsters are nice, why aren't you letting them go free?"

The Captain sighed, before kneeling down to the young girl's level. "I'm afraid it just isn't that simple, kid."

"I would assume it isn't your decision, is it? Or your Colonel's?" Asgore asked.

"Well, no," Captain Harkness said. "But even if it was… well- let me try to explain the situation. I don't know how much _you _know, but humanity as a whole has never encountered other intelligent species before. Sure, many have kind of been expecting us to run into one eventually, but there's still no telling what the reaction would be. The effects it'll have on the sciences, the economy, religion, even just people's psyches… it could all add up to anything from a short disruption to complete and utter anarchy.

And that's just if we were talking about ET, which you aren't, as far as we know. You're a species - multiple species - that have been literally and figuratively living right under our noses. That just complicates things even further. And let me be blunt: there are some very powerful people out there who don't want things to get complicated. They're happy with things just the way they are."

"You can't just expect them to go back to living the way they were!" Frisk exclaimed. "Do you know how long they've been waiting for this? To get out from living in the dark? It's their every hope and dream!"

Asgore nodded. "Young Frisk speaks the truth. Many… sacrifices were made to get to this point. I simply cannot tell my people that all of that has been for nothing."

"I'm not saying that's how this is gonna go down," Captain Harkness said. "And the more we get to know each other, the more we can learn to trust each other, the more options will become available."

"What options do we have available as of now?" Asgore asked.

"Well…" Captain Harkness said, pausing in thought for a moment. "Maybe we could start off by letting your group have a little breathing room. I have a hunch you could have escaped already if you wanted to, anyway."

Frisk merely smiled innocently while Asgore shifted his glance away from the Captain.

"Right," Captain Harkness nodded. "I'll have to clear it with Colonel O'Neill, but he'll probably give the go-ahead." He raised a finger. "However, I need your word that none of you will attempt to leave the perimeter we've established. Nobody but the soldiers here can know about you, okay?"

"What about the humans we encountered when we first left the mountain?" Asgore inquired.

"They've been… taken care of."

Both Frisk and Asgore's eyes widened in horror.

The Captain nearly face-palmed. "Alright, bad way to word it. I mean they've been fed a cover story - that what they thought were, uh, 'monsters', were just the result of a hallucinogenic volcanic gas. We let them go after that. Not exactly the way I would have handled it, but hopefully… hopefully they bought it."

* * *

A hundred miles away, within one of the many small buildings stretching across a suburban jungle, four teenagers sat in front of a computer, cycling through article after article regarding Mt. Ebbot.

"Alright, that settles it," one of them said, a young man wearing a small blue cap on his strangely elongated, football-shaped head. "We've gone through like ten geological web pages - no reports of any types of hallucinogenic gas ever being detected at Mt. Ebbot. I'm officially not buying their story anymore."


	3. Who Goes There?

_A Short Time Earlier_

Four teenagers, two boys and two girls, walked along a lonely, mountain path, with great pine forests stretching for miles on both sides of them. They walked in a square formation, with one of the leading two pushing along what resembled a lawn mower, though one with a flat screen displaying various statistics attached to its handle.

"Alright, Phoebe, you gotta tell me," Gerald, the young African American pushing the device exclaimed. "How did you get your hands on this thing? It looks like it cost a couple grand."

"Around 30 thousand dollars to be precise," she said, smiling his way.

"Wait what?!"

"Ground penetrating radars are frequently used in archaeology, Gerald," Phoebe explained. "My father happens to have a few at the university."

"And he let you borrow it for a high school science project," Gerald exclaimed, before turning his attention to one of the two teenagers walking behind him. "Unbelievable. That's crazy, right, Arnold?"

Arnold did not respond. He was too busy conversing with his partner, Helga.

"Ah," Gerald said, smiling to himself.

"- And everything got fried. Crimity, I'm surprised Big Bob didn't keel over from a heart attack after that," Helga chuckled.

"I'm just glad Grandpa taught us what we did - otherwise we never would have found our way back," Arnold said, before rolling his eyes. "And Gerald and I thought he was just wasting our time."

"Yo, are you talking about the time we almost got lost here?" Gerald asked.

"The time we *did* get lost here, Geraldo," Helga said, smirking.

He smirked back. "Good thing me and Arnold were here to bail you out."

"Yeah yeah waaaay to brag about it," she sighed. "How's things with the lawn mower-"

"Grand penetrating radar," Phoebe corrected.

"- The ground penetrating lawn mower going?"

Phoebe shot her a look as Arnold and Gerald burst out laughing. Her annoyance subsiding, Phoebe couldn't help but to smile as well. "I think we still have a little to go before we run into the first lava tube. Hopefully-"

As if on cue, the device began to beep.

"Hey, uh, is it supposed to do that?" Gerald asked, glancing at its screen.

Phoebe shook her head, slightly startled. "No, we aren't anywhere near any of the known lava tubes."

"Maybe a glitch?" Arnold suggested.

"Possibly," Phoebe mused, before gesturing for Gerald to move out of the way. "Pardon me, Gerald."

"You're running the show, my lady of science," he grinned, causing her to blush.

"Jeez, and I thought my love poems about Arnold were corny," Helga said.

"Hey, I thought they were pretty cool," Arnold protested.

Helga shot him a look. "Liar. You thought they were creepy."

"Creepy can be cool," Arnold shrugged, earning a playful punch from Helga.

Phoebe, in the meantime, was monitoring the GPR's data screen. "Hmmm, this *is* pretty strange."

"I know that tone," Gerald said. "We talking Charlie Sheen strange or Mel Gibson strange?"

"Mel Gibson strange," Phoebe said tersley. "According to these readings - which are *not* a glitch, by the way - there's apparently a large cavern right beneath our feet."

"Like a new lava tube?" Arnold asked.

Phoebe shook her head. "No, it's much bigger than that. It's measuring over a half-mile in width and a quarter-mile in height. And that's just one segment. That… that's - no. There's no way -"

"... That nobody else has found it?" Arnold said.

"Yes, exactly," Phoebe said. "Professionals with much better equipment than us have gone through this area plenty of times - they should have found this."

"So? A new cave popped up. Big deal," Helga said.

"Caves that size do not just 'pop up' unless there has been major tectonic activity," Phoebe said. "And even then, it's unlikely something this size could form in hard bedrock." She shook her head. "I don't know what to say."

"I do," Gerald said, smiling. "I say we're about to land an A+ on our project!"

"Annnnd we barely had to walk more than a few miles!" Helga cheered. "You're the best, Phoebe. Have I ever told you that before?"

"Barely," she grumbled, still gazing at the screen.

"Well I'm tellin' ya right now!" Helga grinned, before throwing her arms around a shocked Phoebe in an uncharacteristically friendly hug, leaving Arnold and Gerald baffled.

"Good lord, Arnold," Gerald laughed. "You've only been dating Helga for a few years and look what's happened."

"I'd like to say we've rubbed off on each other," Arnold said, smiling innocently.

Gerald laughed. "Lil more than rubbing off. It's like she's a whole different person. Surprised she still calls you 'football head'."

"Force of habit," Helga chimed in.

Yet before any of the group could say another word, a loud voice range out from the woods.

"AWWWW! SEE, LOOK AT THAT, SANS! OTHER HUMANS ARE PLENTY CAPABLE OF AFFECTION AS WELL!"

The group turned towards the origin of the voice, stunned that anyone was within even a mile of them on the lonely stretch of mountain. They couldn't see anything as of yet, just the rustling of brush.

"Oh geez," Helga sighed. "Guess this mountain is a weirdo magnet now."

"Hey, be nice," Arnold said. "They sound friendly enough. Maybe they're- WAIT, WHAT THE HELL THAT?!"

His mouth nearly fell of his jaw as nothing less than a skeleton, bleached bones and all, stepped out of the woods, a perpetual grin on its face.

"GREETINGS, NEW HUMAN FRIENDS! CALL ME PAPYRUS, MASTER OF HUMAN-MONSTER RELATIONS!"

"YEAH, NOPE!" Gerald screamed, turning about with his friends and preparing to book it down the mountain, leaving the GPR behind.

"Yeah, _of course _this mountain is haunted, _of course _!" Helga cursed.

Just as the group was about to run, they found their path down the slope blocked by a new, large, fuzzy figure.

"Wait! Please do not be afraid!" it said in a feminine tone.

The group merely yelped in response.

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap, GOAT DEMON!" Helga shrieked as the group prepared to run the only way they had left: up the slope. "Nuh uh! No way! You're not talking Helga Pataki's soul! Not before me and Arnold get married and have kids and take out a time-share on Bermuda and -"

"Oh! I've always wanted to visit Bermuda," yet another new voice said. Much to the shock of the group, it came from that of a young, brown haired young girl smiling innocently in front of their new path. "It looks really pretty!"

The group froze, examining their new situation. Naturally, it was Gerald who was the first compose himself. "Waaaait a minute." He began to chuckle. "Oh, I get it. Yeah, very funny. This is some Canted Camera stuff, isn't it? Alright, where's the film crew? Did Sid tip you guys off we'd be up here?"

Following his lead, his friends began to settle down as well.

"Um, my child, what is a 'Canted Camera'," the fuzzy 'monster' asked the child.

"A TV show," Frisk said. "It's uh… kind of hard to explain."

"Oh come on, quit fooling around with this crap," Helga grumbled. "Let me guess, this skeleton guy is a hologram, isn't he? Like Tupac?"

Bravely walking over to a bemused Papyrus, she slowly moved a finger towards his torso, expecting it to go right through it.

It didn't.

"WELL, THIS TOOK AN UNEXPECTED TWIST!" Papyrus mused to himself.

"Uhhh… so… maybe some sort of weird animatronic?" Helga gulped.

"ANIMATRONIC? IS THAT SOME SORT OF ROBOT-ANIMAL HYBRID?!" Papyrus asked.

As he spoke, more figures crept out of the brush: a lizard-like creature wearing glasses, another goat-like fluffy mass, a shorter skeleton, and finally, a grouchy looking finned humanoid carrying a glowing spear. They kept their distance for whatever reason and gazed at the humans warily.

"Oh my," Phoebe gulped. "H-Helga?"

"I, uh-" Helga coughed, slowly backing away from Papyrus.

For what felt like an eternity, the two groups froze, eyeing each other over, until finally, the young child broke the silence.

"Yeaaaah, maybe I should say 'hi' first from now on, Papyrus," she said, smiling cheekily his way.

"WHAT?! WHY?!"

"cus you might _rattle _someone's _bones, _bro," the shorter skeleton joked.

"AND YOUR JOKES WON'T?!" Papyrus snapped.

Finally, Arnold snapped out of it, looking more exasperated than anything. "Alright, seriously, what's going on here? Who- what-"

"Maybe we should start over," the young child said, smiling widely. "My name's Frisk. These are my friends, Papyrus, Undyne, Asgore, Toriel, Sans, and Alphys." She pointed to each as she called out their names. "They're uh, monsters."

"Monsters?" Arnold said flatly.

"Not scary monsters, though!" Frisk quickly stated. "They're really nice when you get to know them!"

"Most of us," Toriel said, shooting a glare Asgore's way.

A beat.

"... Yo, did that goat demon just get all passive aggressive with the other goat demon?" Gerald whispered somewhat loudly to Phoebe, who merely blinked.

"They're not demons," Frisk giggled. "Like I said, they're *monsters*. They've been living in the Underground for thousands of years, but now-"

"Wait!" Phoebe said, finally chiming in. "Underground as in …"

"A massive cavern system underneath this very mountain," Asgore explained.

Phoebe gasped. "So that's what the GRP picked up! But why-" She shook her head, trying to compose herself. "I uh, have a few questions!"

"Yeah, and I do, too," Helga grumbled. "H-How can we be sure you're not Hollywood hocus pocus?"

"HOLL-Y WOOD?" Papyrus said, cocking his skull for a head to the side. "IS THAT THE NAME OF THIS FOREST?"

"Naw, she just doesn't think we're real still," Undyne sighed. "Let's stop screwing around here. You want proof? Here's proof. NYAAAAH!"

With one solid maneuver, the fish-like humanoid turned towards the woods and launched her spear, causing the small tree she struck with it to nearly topple over. The group paused, glancing astonished at Undyne, who proudly placed a hand on her hip.

Well, all but one were impressed ...

"Alright, so you can throw a spear - big deal," Helga said, smirking.

… Before Undyne summoned another spear in her wrist, grinning, and causing Helga's smirk to vanish.

"A-And she might have also just violated the law of the conservation of energy," Phoebe gulped.

"Hey, Toriel, you wanna jump in here?" Undyne asked.

She shook her head. "I don't want to start a forest fire."

"DON'T WORRY, I DON'T MIND SHOWING OFF!" Papyrus declared, before materializing yet another (unattached) bone out of thin air and chucking it into the woods. "NEHEHE!" He then repeated it several times, much to the astonishment of the group.

"I don't believe this," Gerald said. "Is this seriously real magic? Or am I gonna look like an asshole on TV later?"

"All evidence so far points towards the former," Phoebe squeaked. "But um, about those questions. First off, how in the world has an undiscovered species - er, multiple species - of sapient humanoids been living underneath a mountain the middle of Washington State without anyone noticing?! This... this seems impossible!" It looked as if she was going to start drooling when she manically continued with, "Tell. Me. Everything!"

"Oh, well, I guess that's my cue," Asgore said. "Where to even begin. Um, maybe pre-Underground history?"

Before an eager Phoebe could respond, Gerald interrupted her.

"Wait, everyone hang on," he said, putting a cupped hand to his ear. "Does… anyone hear that?"

Indeed, over a whispering breeze, the distinct sound of helicopter blades could be heard in the distance, growing into an absolute roar within under a minute. Suddenly, both parties found themselves in a whirlwind of dust as multiple twin and single-bladed choppers moved into position overhead - just above the treeline.

"Alright, I don't think even Canted Camera can afford that kind of military equipment!" Gerald yelled over the noise.

"What the hell are those things, Frisk?" Undyne shouted.

"Helicopters!" Alphys responded for her. "W-We've seen them in that one anime before, remember? Humans have created flying machines, too, like that jetpack I made! Q-Quite marvelous, really!"

Undyne shot her a confused look "I thought you and Frisk said anime wasn't real!"

"W-Well I guess _some _of it is, after all!"

As she spoke, nearly two dozen soldiers, rifles, gas masks, and all, repelled from the sky, quickly forming a perimeter around the two groups.

"OH LOOK, SANS, EVEN MORE HUMAN FRIENDS TO MEET!" Papyrus said cheerfully. "WE ARE REALLY GETTING OFF TO A RUNNING START, HERE!"

"yeah, i uh… don't know about that Paps," Sans said solemnly, glancing at their weapons. "i don't think those things they're holding are just for show.'

"WELL, THEY CERTAINLY ARE FLASHY-"

"Don't attempt to run!" one of the soldiers shouted, cutting Papyrus off, as he and the other soldiers drew their rifles. "If you do, we _will _open fire!"

"Ohohoho!" Undyne growled, crouching down and holding a spear defensively. "Try it, buster, and you're gonna get popsicled!"

"POPSICLED?!" Papyrus asked.

"Means I'm gonna stick my spear up his-"

"Undyne, they outnumber us two to one," Asgore said calmly.

"We can't just let them shoot us!" Undyne roared. "Not after everything we've been through! This is _not _how it's supposed to end!"

"We won't shoot unless you give us a reason to!" the apparent lead soldier spat. "Drop the spear or get dropped, extro!"

"Undyne, do as he says," Asgore said.

Undyne paused, as if weighing her options. Despite the circumstance, Helga couldn't help but to smile slightly at the sight. "Is it just me, or is the fish girl kind of badass?"

"Freakin' crazy more than anything," Gerald whispered.

"Bah!" Undyne finally growled, dissipating the spear in her hands. "Only _and _only cus I wanna get off on the right foot."

"Smarter than you look," the leader nodded. "Corporal?"

"Yes sir!" a female soldier wearing a medical patch said, before pointing to Arnold and company. "You there! Are you okay? Did they hurt you in any way?"

"U-Uh, no!" Arnold called. "In fact, they've been pretty friendly-"

"Alright," the soldier said, ignoring him. "Sergeant Johnson?"

"Right, gotta get them examined an detoxed," the lead soldier nodded. "Anyone who doesn't look like a god damned Tim Burton character, you may slowly exit the perimeter."

"TIM WHO?"

The soldier pointed a finger at the skeleton. "Not talking to you." He turned back towards the group of humans and fiercely gestured towards the perimeter. "The rest of you, move it or lose it!"

With that, Arnold and his three friends complied, slowly shuffling towards the ring of soldiers. The only humans left in the ring of soldiers was Frisk.

"B-But," Frisk said, a trace of tears forming in her eyes. "W-Why are you doing this?! They haven't hurt anyone! This… this isn't how it was supposed to go."

"Listen, kid, we don't have time to argue," the sergeant barked, as a radio attached to his person began to squawk frantically. "These are potentially hostile extros we're dealing with. Exit the perimeter - now!"

She froze, glancing at the soldiers, then back at the monsters.

"Go on, Frisk, we'll be okay," Toriel said softly.

"This… this wasn't how it was supposed to happen, though," she repeated.

Toriel nodded mournfully. "I know, but we will make the most of it. See you soon."

After another second of trepidation, as helicopter blades continued to roar overhead, Frisk slowly walked to the ring of soldiers - in particular, to the medic. As soon as she was in reach, the medic took her in her arms and hugged her to her chest. "Hey, it'll be okay," she said softly. "You're safe now."

"B-But what about them?" Frisk said, pointing to the monsters.

She glanced at them, then back at the child. "They'll... they'll be taken care of."

At that, the sergeant major finished speaking coded messages into his radio and turned towards his troops. "Alright, orders are to secure, contain, and protect these… these creatures and wait for Colonel O'Neill to arrive." He glanced towards the monsters. "So, we gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?"

* * *

_The Present_

"This is crazy you know," Gerald sighed, rolling back his wheeled chair away from Arnold's computer as he slouched into it. "Not just 'oh, I saw Bigfoot' crazy, but 'I saw Bigfoot making out with the Loch Ness Monster before doing keg stands with Moth Man' kind of crazy."

"Not any crazier than us all sharing the same hallucination via a non-existent gas eruption," Phoebe pointed out.

"And why would the military be dealing with that sort of thing, anyway?" Arnold pondered. "Why no cops, no rescue workers?"

"Yeah, it was definitely some kind of cover-up," Helga said. "But for what? Were those things some sort of weird human-animal hybrid experiment?" She shivered. "Feakin' MkUltra crap. Crimity! Never thought I'd say it, but maybe Big Bob's onto something with all his cookoo conspiracy talk."

Arnold shook his head. "I dunno if they had anything to do with them. I remember Mr. Simmons talking about how the Native Americans had all kinds of legends about weird creatures in this area."

"I don't know about that," Phoebe said. "They'd have the same problem as other cryptids: we would have found evidence of them in the fossil record."

"They said they were from, uh, underground, though," Arnold said. "Maybe we just haven't dug deep enough… or something?"

Phoebe gave him a look. "You can't find fossils unless you dig deep."

"Look, that fish girl thing was using some kind of magic," Gerald stated. "Far as I'm concerned, all this science stuff is off the table. They might not even leave fossils. Heck, they might not even be from this planet. That soldier guy called them 'extros'. Aliens, anyone?"

"Ugh, who cares about where they came from!" Helga grumbled, throwing her arms up in exasperation. "We saw what we saw - what more can we do? Report it to the local paper and look like a bunch of yahoos? Go snooping around Mt. Ebbot and get shot by some overzealous grunt? No, thank you."

The group stood in silence for a second, contemplating Helga's words, before Arnold finally broke it with, "Well, we can't just sit back and do nothing. The military didn't look like it was going to play too nice with them."

"Oh crimity," Helga moaned. "I knew you were gonna do this."

"So? You don't have to come along," Arnold smirked.

Helga returned the smirk. "Ha! And let you do this all on your own? Fat chance!"

"Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute," Gerald said. "Arnold, are you seriously thinking what I think you're thinking?"

"What, that we should try to help them?" Arnold said non-chalantly.

"Oh lord," Gerald sighed. "You're just deciding this right here and there, aren't you? Helga's right. You got some sort of compulsive hero syndrome or something, you know that?"

"So? You in?"

Gerald rolled his eyes. "Duh. Phoebe?"

She raised a finger. "*If* we can figure out a way to do this without being thrown into a military prison... " She smiled in determination. "I just have too many questions that I need answered."

Helga rolled her eyes. "Alright, so we're all aboard 'Team This Will Go Horribly Wrong'. Where do we start? How do we even know where the… the 'monsters' have gone off to? They might have taken them to Area 51 or whatever for all we know."

"But like you said, we _don't _know that," Arnold stated. "Besides, they said they were from under the mountain, right? Maybe we could find a way in there - find more of them."

"Then what?" Gerald stated. "Ask them to pop onto Jimmy Fallon? Besides, the military might have already…" His eyes widened in horror. "Oh no."

"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about, too," Phoebe gulped. "They confiscated all our GPR findings - assuming they didn't know about the cavern system beforehand, they do now."

"Wait a minute, though," Arnold said, snapping his fingers. "The girl, uh… Frisk."

"Yeah, what about her?" Helga asked.

"They weren't treating her the same as the monsters, remember? Like she wasn't one of them."

"And the creatures were asking her questions about things - like Canted Camera," Phoebe pondered. "As if… she was some sort of guide to them."

"Huh…" Gerald said. "You know, I think we can work with that."

Helga raised an eyebrow. "How? You gonna search through public records or something?"

Gerald shrugged. "Frisk ain't the most common name. You ever know a Frisk before?"

"Point taken," Helga grunted.

"Knowing where she's from..." Arnold nodded. "Where the military might be taking her. If we can find her… well, it'll be a start. At least we'll know more about what we're getting into here."

"Yeah, weird supernatural crap," Helga moaned.

Arnold frowned. "I thought you said you were in."

"I am!" Helga said. "Just… just feels like we're getting in over our heads here, okay? Even more than in San Lorenzo." She shook her head. "Wish your parents weren't abroad again - they probably could have helped us out."

Arnold chuckled whimsically. "I'm not even sure _they'd _believe me about all of this."

"Probably best we keep this between ourselves, anyway," Gerald said. "Don't want word getting out about any of this... for now at least. Helga's right, though - we should start small. Let's find out more about Frisk. For all we know, she might be from around here-"

"Gravity Falls," Phoebe said bluntly, gazing at the computer.

"Wait… wait what?!" Gerald coughed.

"She's from Gravity Falls, Oregon." Phoebe gestured at the screen. On it was a missing person's page, a picture of a sad looking Frisk front and center.

"Hot damn," Gerald practically laughed. "You really are the smartest cutie in the world. You know that, right?"

All Phoebe could do was turn away from him, blushing furiously.

"Ugh, can you two be any cheesier?" Helga moaned, before gazing towards Arnold. "I'm glad we're not like that. Isn't that right, my corn flower haired beloved?"

"Yep, of course," Arnold smirked, before gazing at the computer. "Huh, yeah, that's definitely her. Says she disappeared from the…" His face grew solemn. "Gravity Falls Bill of Hearts Orphanage over three months ago."

The rest of the group winced.

"Ouch," Gerald said. "So she must have run away from home for some reason…"

"That's likely a long hike to Mt. Ebbot," Phoebe noted, before pulling up Google Maps and typing in a bit of information. "Ah, as I suspected, Gravity Falls is over 200 miles away from it."

"Must have taken the bus or something," Arnold said. "Then, she must have gone up the mountain for some reason …"

"And fallen into the cave system," Phoebe nodded. "I did some research on the area before we went hiking. A lot of people, in particular children, have gone missing there over the years. Some have even attributed it to paranormal activity."

"Whelp, they were half-right," Helga grunted. "Explains why they've got all those signs and crap trying to keep people from going off the beaten path - climbing too high and all that."

"'Those who climb the mountain never return,'" Gerald shivered. "That's what that creepy ranger we ran into said, remember? I thought he was just trying to scare us."

"All legends have some truth to them," Arnold stated matter-of-factly. "You know that better than anyone, 'keeper of the tales'."

"True. Guess this'll be another one to add to my book," Gerald nodded. "Though I'll have to change the name from 'Urban Legends of the Northwest' to just 'Legends of the Northwest'. Eh, flows better anyway."

"Yep yep yep. Now pack your bag, boys," Helga said, rolling her chair back away from the computer with a satisfied look on her face. "Plenty of time to chat on the road."

They gave her a puzzled look.

"What?" Helga said, shrugging. "You seriously want to just call the place up? Tip the g-men off that we're onto em'? Remember, big brother is watching us. Ain't that right, Phoebe?"

"Mhm," she nodded. "Though on the very likely event they're monitoring us - it's what I would do - and they find a way around my internet privacy tricks - also very likely - they may already know what we're about to do."

"Man, I wish Sid was in on this," Gerald said. "He's into all this government conspiracy stuff - might know what they're capable of."

"As long as we keep an eye out for black helicopters and unmarked cars, I think we'll be okay," Arnold chuckled. "After all, we're just taking an innocent vacation to Gravity Falls."

…

…

…

_…_

_…_

_LIST OF ALL DANGEROUS _**_ROGUE ANOMALOUS ENTITIES _**_LIKELY TO BE ACTIVE IN THE _**_NORTHWESTERN UNITED STATES_ **_AND ATTRACTED TO _**_EXOTIC EBBOT ENERGIES_ **_COMPLETED … _

_THIS IS DESPITE A LACK OF KNOWLEDGE AS TO WHETHER OR NOT EBBOT'S EXOTIC ENERGIES HAVE SEVERE 'LURE' POSSIBILITIES UNTIL TESTS ARE BE CARRIED OUT …_

_OH WELL, IT'S NOT MY TIME TO WASTE. LIST IS AS FOLLOWS FROM MOST LIKELY TO LEAST LIKELY:_

**_1\. [REDACTED]_**

**_2\. _****_[REDACTED]_**

**_3\. [REDACTED]_**

**_4\. [REDACTED]_**

**_5\. [REDACTED]_**

**_6\. [REDACTED]_**

**_7\. [REDACTED]_**

**_8\. MOTH MAN_**

_…_

_…_

_..._

_THIS WAS A JOKE. MOTH MAN ISN'T REAL …_

_..._

_OH, AND THE REAL LIST IS LIKELY TO BE MUCH LONGER …_

_HOWEVER, AS I'VE NOTED MANY TIMES, THE LIST CANNOT BE COMPILED UNTIL CERTAIN VARIABLES ARE KNOWN. TO LEARN THOSE VARIABLES, I'M GOING TO NEED SOME _**_TEST SUBJECTS _**_..._

_..._

AND MAYBE A FEW CAKES.


	4. Gravity Falls

To say Gravity Falls was picturesque wouldn't do the sleepy town justice. Just to arrive there, the small group had to drive between two large cliffs with gaping maw-like crevices carved into their sides. Cascading down the face of one of them was a massive waterfall which poured into a beautiful, shimmering lake.

"Man, I can't believe I've never heard of this place before," Arnold said, gazing out the passenger window as their car rolled into town.

"Yeah, you'd think a town named 'Gravity Falls' would catch your eye," Gerald noted from the backseat. "Maybe it's an all sights, nothing to do kind of place?"

"You'd think someone would make something to do then - like build a five star golf resort or something," Helga pointed out from behind the wheel. "Guess they just don't want to deal with tourists."

"Yet they're fine with making tourist traps," Phoebe said, eyeing a large billboard ahead. It featured chubby, goofy looking young man wearing a red fez posing below a simple title: 'Mystery Shack'.

"Hah! Might as well say 'Welcome to Oregon'," Helga laughed. "Discount Ripley's Believe it or Nots grow like weeds around here."

"Make a left ahead," Arnold interjected, gazing at the directions on his smartphone. "Should be right down this road on the right."

"Thanks, Garmin," Helga said, smirking at him, to which he merely rolled his eyes at.

Just as he said, the orphanage was tucked in between two larger buildings in a small residential area, a great forest extending from behind it. It was a humble building, and like most of the buildings in town, seemed to have been renovated as of recently. A large patch of roofing wasn't matching the rest of it, as if a hole had been blown through the original and then patched up.

"Yikes, wonder what happened to this place?" Gerald said. "Looks like the whole town's been hit by a mega hailstorm or something lately."

"Wonder if it has something to do with why Frisk ran away?" Arnold pondered.

"Something to ask her if she's here, maybe?" Phoebe said.

Arnold shook his head. "Naw, I don't think she'll want to talk about it. Let's try and stay on the monster topic, okay?"

"You're the people person here," Helga smiled. "You take the lead."

And so they exited their car and made their way into the building. Inside was a small lobby area with a red-headed teenage girl sitting casually at a desk. Fitting the cool autumn weather and the rustic area, a worn bomber hat sat clumsily on her head.

"Hey there," she said, her voice matching her relaxed posture. "What can I do for ya'?"

"Uh hi," Arnold said, clearing his throat. "We're here to visit someone."

"Oh?" the girl said, eyeing the quartet suspiciously. "Don't often get people here for that, unfortunately. Specially not people my age."

"Look, we're not creepers or anything," Gerald stated, scratching the back of his head. "Just kind of a weird situation."

"Weird, huh? Whelp, you came to the right town," Wendy chuckled.

Helga raised an eyebrow. "Hey, how'd you know we just got here?"

"Have you met anyone here?" she said, still bemused. "Normal people stick out like sore thumbs - normal city people even more."

"Damn," Gerald said. "She's good."

Phoebe let out a grunt in protest. "Hey, I'll have you know we can be plenty weird!"

"Yeah, we once had a 'Geek Party' on this dude's roof," Gerald said, nodding Arnold's way.

"Oh yeah, I remember that," Helga laughed. "Damn, your granny can play a mean piano, you know that?"

Arnold sighed whimsically. "Good times."

The girl blinked. "How'd you get a grand piano on your roof?"

"Good question," Helga added.

Arnold simpered. "Well, grandma couldn't get it through the door, so she just paid a crane operator to… put it up there."

There was a beat of silence before the red-headed girl broke out laughing.

"Alright, alright, 'one of us' and all that," she giggled, standing up from the desk. "Let's start over. I'm Wendy. So, who are you here to see exactly?"

"A young girl - Frisk's her name. We uh… don't know her last name."

Wendy's eyes widened briefly, before her look grew solemn. "I'm afraid I can't help you there." She gestured towards a wall with a missing person's poster hanging on it - an image of a sad looking Frisk front and center. "She's been gone for months now."

"You mean… she's not back yet?" Phoebe asked trepidly.

Wendy shook her head. "No, I would have known." She glanced away from the quartet, before throwing them another suspicious yet strangely hopeful glance. "Wait, 'back yet', what do you mean? Have you seen her or something?"

"Well, yeah, but-" Gerald said.

"But what? Where'd you last see her? When?" Wendy insisted. "Listen, I know the cops say they're still looking for her but I'm pretty sure they've dropped the case. Who cares about a little orphan girl? But if they had a solid lead on where she could be …"

"I take it you two were close?" Arnold said.

"Well, sort of. I've only been working here since last summer," Wendy admitted. "Thought, 'hey, I'm good with kids, could be fun,' and it has been. They've all been great, the few that are here. However ..."

* * *

_A few months prior …_

_"_Frisk though, Frisk was special …"

_A young boy sat gloomily on the steps of the orphanage, looking as if he hadn't slept for days. Wendy looked on from the window, about to approach him, but before she could, Frisk appeared by his side, offering him an icecream sandwich and a soft smile._

* * *

"She was just such a sweetheart. Honestly, I've only met one person who could make friends faster than her."

_"Yoooo random person!" a young, excited teenage girl said, running up to Frisk in the middle of a sunny park. She was followed by Wendy… and a pig wearing a hand-crafted tuxedo. "Do you think Waddles looks handsome enough to find a Mrs. Waddles?"_

_"Mabel, meet Frisk, Frisk meet Mabel," Wendy chuckled. "So what do ya' say, Frisk?"_

_Frisk looked over the pig for a moment, before shaking her head._

_"Whaaaaaaat?!" Mabel said, looking as if she was about to tear up_

"Though with the help of some unusual… abilities?"

_"Ouch, Frisk," Wendy winced. "Little blunt, don't you think-"_

_Before she could finish, Frisk pulled pig-sized bow-tie seemingly out of nowhere and placed it on the pig's front collar. "Now he definitely does."_

_Mabel's eyes nearly sparkled upon seeing her new and improved pig. Without much of a warning, she wrapped her arms around Frisk in a hug. "You fashionista, you! It's perfect! Welcome to *mah tribe*!"_

_Frisk merely shrugged, happily returning the hug. Wendy merely shook her head with a smile._

* * *

"Underneath it all, she was hurting, though, I think."

_As rain poured outside, Frisk sat in an empty room on the top mattress of her bunk bed, gazing intently at a postcard with the title, 'Mt. Ebbot'._

* * *

"Who could blame her?" Wendy explained. "Found out later that she never knew who her parents were. She was dropped off too young. I think that might be why after… certain events, she just disappeared."

Helga glanced away from her, then glanced at Arnold, a knowing look on his face. "That… that sucks."

Wendy nodded. "So if you know anything … Did you see her with anyone? Her parents, maybe?"

"Not her parents," Arnold said, shaking his head. "Well, at least not her uh… biological parents."

Wendy furrowed her brow. "You mean she was with someone?"

"Hoooo boy," Gerald sighed. "This is gonna be fun."

"Go ahead, tell me everything, I've got time," Wendy offered.

"Yeah," Arnold coughed. "About that … it's a bit of a weird story."

Wendy gave a curt laugh. "Oh trust me, I've got a few of my own. Hit me with your best shot, sucka!"

"Uh, should we really-?" Phoebe interjected.

"No, might as well go all in," Arnold continued, before clearing his throat and beginning with, "It all started with a science project we were doing …"

* * *

"Annnnd that's how we wound up here," Arnold finished nearly 30 minutes later, taking a deep breath afterwards. He then gazed towards Wendy with a look filled with apprehension.

In turn, she merely glanced away from him, looking as if she was in deep thought.

"So this is the part where you tell us to 'get some help' followed by 'get out', right?" Gerald said.

"If she doesn't straight-up call the cops on us," Helga mumbled, folding her arms.

Instead, she merely smiled. "If you told me all this a few years ago, yeah, it'd go down that road, but now… heh. 'Never mind all that', as they say. Honestly, I'm just happy Frisk isn't hurt."

"Wait, so you believe us, then?" Phoebe said, half-shocked.

"I'm leaning towards it," she shrugged. "After last summer, I'm ready to believe anything."

"What happened last summer, anyway?" Arnold said, squinting slightly. "This doesn't have to do with all the weird damage around town, does it?"

"Oh, never mind all that," Wendy said, smiling innocently.

Helga rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, the place looks like it got hit by a meteor shower. You mean you don't got anything to say about that?"

"Nope, never mind all that," Wendy repeated yet again.

Helga gave her a deadpan look, to which Wendy grinned at.

"Haha, naw, you guys are weird enough that I might let you in on some town history one of these days, but first… I think there's someone you should meet."

* * *

"Wendy, I have to say I'm glad you brought them to meet me."

The quartet, Wendy two older men and the same goofy looking younger man the former had previously seen on the billboard advertisement for the 'Mystery Shack' stood in the gift shop of the aforementioned building. Naturally, they were surrounded by the numerous 'oddities' (cheap forgeries) on display, such as a 'unicorn' bear wall trophy, the horn being an obvious paper mache cone glued to its forehead.

"Eh, it was nothing," Wendy shrugged, facing one of the two older men. "Figured if we were dealing with monsters you might know something, Mr. Pines."

"Please, Mr. Ford or Ford is fine," he said. "Having two Mr. Pines around might get confusing."

"Hah, like it isn't already," the other older man said, chuckling to himself. "Though I gotta say… ya' really wanna get mixed up in this stuff again right after our trip, Ford?"

"If it was any other circumstance, Stan …" Ford sighed. "Trust me, I'd love to have a breather. I have a lot of research notes to compile on our findings."

Stan gave him a look.

"Annnnd some well deserved R&R to catch up on - been wanting to see the last few seasons of Cheers for a while now."

"Hah, now _that _is what I'm talking about!" Stan cheered.

"Yoooo, when are you gonna tell us about what went down in the arctic, anyway?" the young, goofy man stated. "Please tell me you at least saw a couple of penguins. Maybe brought a few home… ?" He tapped two fingers together in hope.

"Ugh, not now, Soos," Stan moaned, silencing him. "That's gonna be more than a five minute story."

"And we shouldn't beat around the bush; a kid might be in danger," Ford pointed out.

"Wait, danger?" Arnold said. "The monsters were treating her more like family than anything … We're more worried about what the government might do."

"That's precisely what I mean," Ford nodded. "Like I've said, I've been researching these kinds of things my whole life, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's the government, or should I say, governments, are not fond of any evidence of paranormal activity leaking to the public. I'm honestly surprised they let you go with such a flimsy cover story, but I suppose they must have underestimated you."

"Wait, 'governments'?" Helga said, her eyes widening. "Are you saying there's some creepy new world order crap going on?"

"Oh, nothing like that," Ford said, waving the idea off. "It isn't even exactly the governments themselves doing much of the coverups, it's more like-" He paused, glancing away from them. "Actually, I should stop talking. The less you kids know about that the better."

"Don't want to end up…" Stan shifted his voice into a mock, spooky tone. "Redacted."

The quartet gulped.

"Annnnnyway," Ford said, shifting the subject. "To answer your earlier question, yes, I think I might know a thing or two about what you saw."

With that, he pulled out an old, dusty journal from his trench coat. It was fairly ornate and customized, with a six-fingered hand imprinted on the cover, a number '0' on top of it.

"Woah, I didn't know you had another journal," Stan said, blinking. "Why'd you never tell me about it?"

"Just wasn't relevant at the time," he shrugged. "This one doesn't have much about Gravity Falls in it - I actually started it when I was researching anomalies around the country before I came here."

"Hey, wait a minute," Gerald said.

"Oh, question, young man?" Ford said with a hint of enthusiasm.

"Just been biting at me," he said. "If you know so much about the paranormal - like *real* paranormal stuff, and this town is a hot spot for it… how come this shop only sells fake stuff? Why no Bigfoot fur coats or anything?"

"Woah, dude!" Soos said, pretending to be offended. "I'll have you know all of this stuff is perfectly genuine-"

"Eh, don't bother, Soos," Stan said. "These kids aren't dumb enough to fall for all that. Yeah, the stuff here's fake. Why? Lot of reasons, but the big one is I was too old to go around looking for fairy dust to sell when I ran the place, and I'm pretty sure fairies won't go within five miles of Soos."

He gazed at a fly swatter sitting near the young man.

"Hey, they started it!" Soos said defiantly. "A couple of them just kept following me around saying, 'Hey, listen! Hey listen!' over and over and over. It was self-defense for my sanity!"

"Soos!" Wendy said, giving him a shocked look. "Aren't fairies supposed to be intelligent creatures? How could you just go swatting at them?" She turned towards Ford. "They are intelligent, right?"

"Ehhhh," Ford said, tilting his hand back and forth.

"Hooray, validation!" Soos cheered.

"Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute: are you saying there's *fairies* in this town, too?" Helga said incredulously. "Like tiny little winged people?"

"Hey, you said you wanted to learn more about Gravity Falls," Wendy said, turning to her. "Told you it was weird."

Gerald cleared his throat. "Just when you said 'weird' we thought it was more like, 'We occasionally do road-kill cookoffs,' or something like that. Not 'hey let's give people existential crisises' kind of weird."

As he spoke Helga briefly whispered to Arnold, "We're sure these guys aren't just screwing with us right? Or worse, a bunch of yahoos?"

Arnold merely shrugged as if to say, "_ Let's just go with the flow. _"

"Trust me, you don't know the half of it," Stan groaned. "We've been keeping you kids in the shallow end of the pool so far."

"Oh yeah, dudes," Soos said, shivering slightly. "Heck, I still have nightmares about that triangle guy and-"

"Yeah, maybe we shouldn't go there just yet," Wendy coughed.

"We'll be happy to tell you more about Gravity Falls as time goes by," Ford said. "However, you didn't come here to learn about us, you came here to find out more about Mt. Ebbot, right? Well, the first thing I can tell you is that both it and Gravity Falls used to be similar in many ways."

"They were both covered in pine trees?" Soos asked.

"Soos, I'm pretty sure they're both still like that," Stan pointed out.

Soos nodded. "I figured - I just wanted to contribute to the conversation."

"Pinaceae observations aside ..." Ford started, flipping through his notebook. "Like Gravity Falls, Mt. Ebbot used to be a heavy hotspot for anomalies. Native American legends of the region talk about how long ago, humans weren't the only sapient creatures living in the area."

"The Chinookan people, right?" Phoebe said. "The people living in the region?"

"Hah, yes," Ford said, giving her a nod of approval. "Glad to see Dipper isn't the only kid keeping up with their studies these days."

"Hey, I study!" Soos protested.

"Spending hours on doesn't count as studying, Soos," Wendy noted.

"Yeah, well I betcha can't point out Ensemble Dark Horses out of a group of people," Soos smirked, before whispering loudly to her. "Your friend Robby's one of them, I think."

"I have no idea what you're saying," Wendy blinked.

"But wait," Phoebe said. "The Chinookan had no advanced written language - how were you able to find any of this out?"

"Ahhh, never make the mistake of underestimating the indigenous people's capacity for recalling their history," Ford said. "Their ability to accurately pass things down from one generation to the next simply through the spoken word is uncanny to say the least. Once I got a whiff of the past weirdness of Mt. Ebbot, I began travelling to reservations, talking with descendents of the people who lived there.

They revealed that apparently not only were there non-human sapients living in the area, but hundreds of types of them: big and small, from animal-like to downright bizarre. Sound familiar?"

The group merely stood motionless, stunned.

"Most Natives simply referred to them collectively as 'monsters', though I've also heard them called 'Born from Magic', loosely translated from their language. What that means specifically I'm not sure, but whatever their true nature is, I learned from early cave paintings that they may have been here before even the first humans crossed Beringia into North America over 15 thousand years ago. Yet despite the obvious difference between them, the humans and Natives seemed to have gotten along quite well over that long period of time - living, trading, and perhaps even, uh, intermingling… with each other."

"Yeah, just gonna get that image out of my head," Gerald said, wincing slightly.

"Never miss a detail, eh, Ford?" Stan smirked.

"A gift and a curse," he said, merely shrugging. "Anyway, it seems they lived in almost total peace with each other until suddenly, seemingly out of thin air, a conflict erupted between the two groups, the details of which I've yet to figure out. I heard brief words about the monsters being 'trapped' somewhere, but until now, I wasn't sure what that could have meant." He then smiled, glancing towards Wendy. "However, I think your missing child may inadvertently have solved that mystery."

Wendy gazed at him wondrously. "Are you saying Frisk must have found a way into these uh, 'monsters'' prison or whatever?"

"Perhaps," Ford said, bobbing his head back and forth. "I'm working on a few theories here or there, but honestly, I do my best work in the field."

He gazed towards a set of keys dangling on the wall.

"Oh shoot, is it on?" Soos said hopefully. "It sounds like it is on."

"On like Donkey Kong," Ford said.

The group gazed at him blankly.

"Is that uh… something kids still say?"

A beat.

"Ah, whatever, I'm bringing it back, then!" he announced triumphantly, his eyes narrowing in determination and a look of pure intrigue overwhelming his features. "Come on, we're not going to find answers here!"

* * *

_"Come on, we're not going to find answers here."_

A mile away, in an unmarked black van, a stern looking man stared intently ahead as he listened to the conversation with a pair of headphones.

"Well, looks like Colonel O'Neill was right," he said, nodding to his partner. "Call it in, Agent Trigger. We're not messing around when it comes to Gravity Falls again."


End file.
